The Stockton Society UK

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The Cornovii controlled the land before the Romans took over. These Britons formed the base bloodlines of the ordinary people of Cheshire: their various ancestral lines have been here since the ice retreated, using flint, bronze and then iron tools as new technologies became available. Local families would have been living within the area.

The next major invasion of blood came then from the Roman armies of occupation. Chester’s fort at Deva was raised by the 2nd Assistant Legion, the Legio II Adiutrix Pia Fideles, in 72. They were there until sent to Dacia – Romania – in 87, to try to defeat Decabalus. The Legio II was originally raised from marines in the Mediterranean fleet at Ravenna, Northern Italy – most were from the seafaring peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean. This would be modern day Italy, the Adriatic countries, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Egypt and so on.

The legionary fort attracted local entrepreneurs and their families. And their daughters would have attracted the legionaries like bees round a honey pot. It’s unlikely that any legion, never mind one composed of sailors, would have remained celibate for 15 years. After their withdrawal in 87, the fort was taken over by the Legio XX Valeria. It’s not known where it was originally raised, but it was common policy to take conquered military personnel into the Roman Army and then send them to serve hundreds, even thousands of miles away from home. The 20th Legion, Valiant & Victorious – whose crest was a boar – is first traced fighting on the Danube, in Dalmatia, in Germany and then in the British Isles.

In Britain, the 20th were sent to Camulodunum (Colchester), then to Kingsholm near Gloucester: they were a major part of the force that defeated Boudicca. They were then sent to Wroxeter, saw action in North Yorkshire, were stationed at Carlisle, and had just finished building a fort at Inchtuthill in Perthshire when they were given their marching orders to Chester. The 20th was there until the end of military occupation in Britannia – and a few hundred years is bound to have a not inconsiderable effect on the gene pool. The locals would have spoken their own language - and the Cheshire version of Latin, if they wanted to do business with the town.

Add all these potential bloodlines to the pot, and keep stirring. We’re not finished yet

 

Invaders from the Norse Country

• From the 5th century onwards (particularly during the Migration Period, 450 - 600 A.D.), there were incursions of Norse peoples, many of whom settled on the Wirral. They came from Scandinavia - present day Norway and Sweden, where reasonably level agricultural land was at a premium. Sites in sea marginal areas of those countries, which had been populated during times of maritime regression, were later abandoned because of rising seawater levels and increased storm surge frequencies. The estuaries of the Dee and Mersey were highways for waterborne invaders.

The Saxon power base spread north and Cheshire was controlled by Mercian Saxons – the Mersey was the boundary of that kingdom, with the Welsh to the west and the Danes of Northumbria to the north and east. Their influence may well have been made stronger by the plague which spread all over the still Romanised Western Europe from about 540, re-occurring sporadically into the late 690s. The Cheshire area was still trading with the remnants of the Romanised European mainland. Ships carried its plague into ports along the British coast. The Saxons traded with the un-Romanised Northern Europe and Scandinavia – they must have escaped the worst of it. Hence why so few Romano-British place names survive; early charters, for example, are almost all Saxon, giving place names like ‘stoc tun’.

From the 8th till the 10th centuries, the Irish Scandinavian colonies sent frequent ships to raid – and settle – in Cheshire; part of West Cheshire was at one time actually controlled by the Norse king Ceowulf. Not only are there Danish placenames on the Wirral, but they even held a ‘thing’ or parliament at Thingwall. Cheshire has been recognised as a county from 920, incidentally.

So add a considerable genetic input to the pot from Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland.

Norman Invasion

• The last notable political change was the post 1066 Conquest military occupation of Cheshire by the mercenaries and regular soldiers of Hugh d’Avranches, Hugh Lupus (“The Wolf” – which gives you an idea what sort of man he was). These soldiers were drawn primarily from Normandy and Northern Brittany, but the invasion attracted mercenaries from all over Western Europe, who saw the potential rewards. The Normans were themselves descended from third generation Danish Vikings, who settled in that area and married into the local families.

  They took over the power bases – legal and political power passed to them, though it must be recognised that there were comparatively few of them and they didn’t set about annihilating everyone in Cheshire. There were certainly casualties in the ‘Harrying of the North’, but the current received scholarly understanding is that this was not as brutal as previously thought in Cheshire. The ordinary people stayed where they were, even if their lives were made nasty, controlled by unwelcome overlords who spoke an alien language.

  During this thousand year span, the merchants of Chester were happily engaged in trading with the whole of the Roman Empire, with all the potential that this had for adding to that melting pot.

  Whoever these ancient male progenitors were, they married local girls. That old Cheshire maxim “Best wed over the mixen than over the moor” may have resulted in some interestingly close relationships in small villages. Our lines may very well be related by marriage, even if that male strain is different. - (Susie Stockton Link - 2006)